Planning for retirement is a long process that takes many years and hard work to accomplish. Once you reach the golden years, there are other challenges that you need to face. One of the challenges that you may face is figuring out if you would like to stay in your home or if you should move into a retirement community. Retirement communities do cost a lot of money and they often have monthly membership fees and other things that you will need to pay. However for many seniors, a retirement community is the best way to increase your lifespan as you will not need to worry about some things that can lead to major accidents like mowing the lawn and walking up and down stairs. In most retirement communities the homes are a single level and all of the maintenance is taken care of by the retirement community.

Not only will retirement communities offer you a nice place to live they can also provide you with other things as well like activities to participate in. The new retirement communities are designed to attract the active baby boomers that would like to continue living healthy and active lifestyles and just would like to be around other people their same age.

Should you move into a retirement community? The cost is not cheap and you will need to plan for it. The average cost of buying a home in a retirement community and paying the fees will add up to about $300,000 or more. It depends on where you invest in the home and what type of retirement community you are choosing to purchase a home in.

There are additional costs for 24-hour staffing for the retirement community. The costs for the daily living care usually add up to be about $350 to $3,000 or more each month. For healthy seniors, the community you live in usually does not have 24-hour staffing and they will usually only have a security guard that is working at night. During the days you may have additional staff members around like fitness instructors and gardeners. If your health begins to deteriorate and you need more supervision from medical personnel you will need to leave the retirement community and move to an assisted living facility.

Leaving a retirement community may also come with consequences. You will need to sell your home and if you signed a contract you may need to pay upwards of $60,000 to break the contract. In order to determine if you should sign the contract you should have an attorney review it and make sure you won’t have a large penalty if you need to move based on medical needs.

The independent living communities allow seniors to have independence while enjoying the social atmosphere of being around others and enjoying a large range of activities to participate in. Shop around to find the best prices on the retirement communities that are available for you to move into and to find one that will satisfy all of your needs.